The Independent Feature Project (also knows as the Independent Filmmaker Project or IFP) requests General Program Support for its ongoing activities, including its signature professional development programs for filmmakers and digital storytellers, conferences/classes, and screenings and exhibits.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Antonio Tibaldi), Carcere Mare (Prison, Sea)

Project Description:

Entirely shot on the Island of Gorgona, Italy, Europe’s last agricultural penal colony, CARCERE MARE follows a small group of inmates, prison guards, and educators during the course of one year. The audience is made to wonder to what extent a prison’s living condition may affect future recidivism.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 22,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Zoe Potkin), Chains

Project Description:

Framed for murder by mafia cops in the worst case of NYPD corruption, Barry Gibbs was finally freed after 19 years only to discover that his nightmare had just begun. This is the decade long story of Barry’s life AFTER prison, his fight for freedom, and journey for redemption.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: John Canemaker), Hands

Project Description:

HANDS is a hand-drawn film about an isolated social outcast whose expressive hands are the means by which he relates to the world, and also the source of tragic misunderstanding. The film explores how society judges those who don’t fit in and the longing and despair of a friendless existence.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: NC Heikin), Life Crime

Project Description:

After 33 years in prison, Reggie Austin, musician and murderer, has all but given up when the chance to play with an all-star jazz band leads to success at his 13th parole hearing. Once free, he constructs a fragile new life with his buddy and fellow ex-con Ricky. Then Ricky is murdered.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Beth Aala), Made in Boise

Project Description:

Three women find purpose carrying babies for strangers in Boise, Idaho - the unregulated and unofficial “surrogacy capital” of the United States - even as they put their own lives at risk.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 22,500

Project Title:

(Artist: David Osit), Mayor

Project Description:

With startling and unprecedented access to the Palestinian government, MAYOR follows Musa Hadid, the charismatic Christian mayor of Ramallah, following his quixotic quest to build the city of the future in a nation paralyzed by its past.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 22,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Megan Mylan), Syrian Families film (untitled)

Project Description:

A look at war through the lens of parenthood, the film unfolds as a sequence of cinematic short stories revolving around fractured Syrian families living in Turkey, Greece, the US, Germany and Syria. Each chapter intimately portrays parents working to rebuild their children’s lost sense of security

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Marshall Curry), The Neighbors' Window

Project Description:

A narrative short, The Neighbor's Window is based on a true story about a middle aged couple with young children whose lives are shaken up when two free spirited twenty-somethings move in across the street.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Jehan Harney), TRANSition

Project Description:

Three transgender people live in a dangerous limbo in Egypt, the only Arab country
legally offering free sex-change surgeries. As they indefinitely wait for the surgery, they
have to fight for their lives and dreams in a society that accepts them as male or female
and not in transition, in-between.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY19

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Erik Shirai), Umi (The Sea)

Project Description:

After a tsunami devastates Northern Japan, a spared fisherman learns how to dive to search for the remains of his missing wife, but a freak diving accident forces him to reconcile the frail relationship with his daughter.

Electronic Media & Film

General Support

FY18

$ 20,000

Project Title:

Independent Feature Project

Project Description:

The Independent Feature Project (also known as the Independent Filmmaker Project or IFP) requests General Program Support for its ongoing activities, including its signature professional development programs for filmmakers and new media creators, conferences and classes, and screenings and exhibits.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Eren Gulfidan), Chaotic Terrain

Project Description:

A group of 6th grade girls participate in an annual middle school talent show on Mars, in honor of the Martian Peace Day. After several performances by human contestants, Aru-Izi, a 12 year-old Martian, shocks the audience with her unexpected powers.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Sayak Mukhopadhyay), Gautam, Buddha, and the New Conquerors of Bengal

Project Description:

Gautam Ray and Buddha Haldar are two gay best-friends who play female roles in an all-male traveling theater in rural India. Buddha’s jealous boyfriend and Gautam’s suspicious wife want their men to quit the theater and settle down to more traditional family roles.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Erik Spink), Hart Island: How The Other Half Dies

Project Description:

Laurie and Penda search for the remains of their deceased loved ones in the New York City Cemetery located on Hart Island

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Sam Russell), In the Wiregrass

Project Description:

Heather Lyn Brown disappeared from Dothan, Alabama in 2006. After years of searching, her family was convinced she was dead. Now that she’s surfaced more than a decade later, her story reveals a shocking web of police corruption in her hometown.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Jasmine Luoma), Million Dollar Block

Project Description:

With the future of public housing at stake, Million Dollar Block peers inside one of the most notorious housing developments in the country.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Cat Papadimitriou), Nia On Vacation

Project Description:

A feature film about a young woman looking to escape her reality. Her chance comes in the form of a one way ticket from her estranged brother, to his home country, Greece. This is a quarter-life crisis dramedy.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Danielle Lessovitz), Port Authority

Project Description:

A destructive teenager living in a Brooklyn shelter falls in love with a voguing trans girl from the kiki ball scene and must find a way to save her and her 'found family' from himself.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Deepak Rauniyar), Raja

Project Description:

A socially-rooted police procedural, a race-against-time thriller, as well as a portrait of Nepal, a complex society on the edge of a new future.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Dempsey Rice), The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks

Project Description:

The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks is a documentary film that brings to life ten years of extraordinary conversations with author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, M.D. The film paints a portrait of Sacks’ uniquely agile mind and his urge to understand what it is like to live with neurological deficit.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY18

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Brian Kelly), The Brezinski Project

Project Description:

Investigation of Edward Brezinski, charismatic Lower East Side painter on the fringe of success, who thwarted his own career with antics that roiled NYC’s art elite. Our film reveals a unique snapshot of the 80s art explosion while we unearth the truth of his mysterious death in the Cote d'Azur.

Electronic Media & Film

General Support

FY17

$ 20,000

Project Title:

Independent Feature Project

Project Description:

The Independent Feature Project (also known as the Independent Filmmaker Project or IFP) requests General Program Support for its ongoing activities, including its signature professional development programs for filmmakers and new media creators, conferences and classes, and screenings and exhibits.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY17

$ 22,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Elan Bogarin), 306 Hollywood

Project Description:

Our grandmother’s death triggers a surreal and humorous excavation through 70 years of life at 306 Hollywood Avenue. This magical realist documentary charts a course from her house in New Jersey to ancient Rome, outer space, and back in search of the mystery of memory and what remains.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY17

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Alex Meillier), A Palace of Ashes

Project Description:

Based on the true story of one courageous woman’s journey, which sets an epic love story against a backdrop of terror, espionage, revolution and the birth of a new nation: East Timor.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY17

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Darya Zhuk), Crystal Swan

Project Description:

In 1996, a young urban woman uses forged documents to immigrate from her native Belarus to America, but discovers that she must endure a week in a backwater village in order to succeed.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY17

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Doug Block), Getting Personal

Project Description:

In an age where selfies & Snapchat rule, GP is a 1st person film by renowned filmmaker Doug Block while a 2nd narrative offers a wide ranging look at this unique, often perilous form of storytelling raising complex questions about ethical, personal, stylistic & creative choices central to this form.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY17

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Hope Litoff), Rules to Live By

Project Description:

She’s beautiful, artistic, loved and can’t stand to be alive. RULES TO LIVE BY traces my efforts to piece together the life, mental illness, and tragic suicide of my sister, New York artist and photographer Ruth Litoff.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY17

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Mariah Wilson), Silent Forests

Project Description:

In Cameroon and Congo’s jungles, one of Africa's most iconic species – the forest elephant - is being slaughtered to extinction. This film brings viewers to the front lines of our global poaching crisis, and profiles the men and women who are fighting to stop the flow of ivory from Central Africa.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY17

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Cathryne Czubek), Wakaliwood: Expect the Unexpectable

Project Description:

A childhood plagued by Uganda’s civil war and a job as a brick maker in the slums didn’t prepare Isaac to live out his dream of making action movies, but in the last 10 years he has made 46 films with little money and few resources. He’s about to put it all on the line with his biggest film yet.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY17

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Jeremiah Zagar), We the Animals

Project Description:

We The Animals explores the brutality of family and the viscerally charged landscape of youth through the eyes of Jonah, the youngest son of a mixed-race working-class couple from upstate New York as he discovers his artistic and sexual identity.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY17

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Till Schauder), When God Sleeps

Project Description:

WHEN GOD SLEEPS depicts the journey of an Iranian musician forced into hiding after hardline clerics put a $100,000 bounty on his head. He risks everything to return to the stage and as a result falls in love with a woman whose family is closely entwined with the regime that wants him dead.

Electronic Media & Film

General Support

FY16

$ 22,000

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

IFP requests General Program Support for its ongoing activities including signature programs such as Independent Film Week, the Independent Filmmaker Labs, Filmmaker Magazine and numerous conferences, workshops, member events and film screenings, and programs at the Made in NY Media Center

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY16

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Lana Wilson), Last Call

Project Description:

A remarkable Japanese Buddhist priest uses a range of methods to help desperate people re-discover the will to live. But when a health crisis puts his own life at serious risk, can he live by the same advice he gives out?

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY16

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Jeremy Levine), Last Resort

Project Description:

Last Resort presents a timely portrait of a North St. Louis teenager as she struggles towards graduation at an experimental, court-supervised high school. Launching out of the explosive events in Ferguson, the film provides an intimate exploration of juvenile justice, education, and race in America.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY16

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Jordana Spiro), Night Comes On

Project Description:

Angel is released from juvie on her 18th birthday with one focus: murder the man who killed her mother. That man is her father. What was once a redemption fantasy has now become real in this odyssey where beauty and violence exist side by side.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY16

$ 15,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Alexander Carver), Submission

Project Description:

A two-part short film that explores the inner life of Bradley Manning (leaked the Iraq War Logs) and the apprehension of a would-be ISIS recruit by undercover FBI informants. Initially, a playful romantic sensibility obscures the gravity of underlying political questions.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY16

$ 23,025

Project Title:

(Artist: Jim Bernfield), The Endgame Project

Project Description:

Two actors with Parkinson’s disease put up an off-Broadway production of Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame.” The play is a metaphor for Parkinson’s, as these characters, in life and on stage, perform a vaudevillian routine of repetitive sorrow as they face the inevitable end of their diminishing lives.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY16

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Robert Bahar), The Silence of Others

Project Description:

After decades of silence in Spain, a team of lawyers and victims attempt to bring crimes of Franco’s brutal 40-year dictatorship before a criminal court for the first time in history. What happens when a country is forced to reckon with its past? Can justice be done after so long?

Electronic Media & Film

General Support

FY15

$ 22,000

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

IFP requests General Program Support for its ongoing activities including signature programs such as Independent Film Week, the Independent Filmmaker Labs, Filmmaker Magazine and numerous conferences, workshops, member events and film screenings, and programs at the Made in NY Media Center

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 22,500

Project Title:

(Artist: David Felix Sutcliffe), (T)error

Project Description:

(T)ERROR is the inside story of **** ****, an active counterterrorism informant for the FBI. Filmed on the ground, it captures the dramatic unraveling of the informant's 20-year career with the Bureau after the target of his investigation realizes that he’s been set up.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Michael Collins), Almost Sunrise

Project Description:

The hopeful journey of a young ex-soldier who battles the moral injuries of war – and the temptation to escape them through suicide – as he embarks on a trek across America. Step by step, Tom Voss confronts the demons that haunt him, while discovering the power of community and service to heal him.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Jessica Dimmock), Brick

Project Description:

BRICK explores the raw emotional and physical experience of being a middle aged/senior transgender woman in the Pacific Northwest. BRICK leans into the struggle of those who have been reared and successful at being men and have reached middle age with a burdensome secret they can no longer keep.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 15,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Karina Mangu-Ward), Flush

Project Description:

Flush is a feature documentary that follows the filmmaker’s journey to find out what happens after we flush our toilets in America. Inspired by the farm to table movement, this film tackles the story of how your dinner finds its way from the table back to the farm. And what happens when it doesn’t.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 13,700

Project Title:

(Artist: Lorena Luciano), In the Middle

Project Description:

Set on the Italian island of Lampedusa, the frontier for migrants across Africa seeking an entry gate to Europe, In the Middle tells the story of an Eritrean survivor of a deadly shipwreck and of his savior, an Italian fisherman struggling with one of the worst economic crisis in Italian history.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Jesse Sweet), Kiryas

Project Description:

KIRYAS chronicles a year-in-the-life of the controversial Hasidic village, Kiryas Joel, New York – the fastest growing Jewish community in the world. To outsiders, its strict religious doctrines make it a small-town theocracy; to insiders, its pure expression of faith makes it Judaism’s best hope.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 17,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Sabine Krayenbühl), Letters from Baghdad

Project Description:

A documentary on Gertrude Bell, the most powerful woman of her day in the British Empire, who helped draw Iraq's borders, install it’s first king and establish the Iraq Museum before disappearing from history.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Andrew Berends), Madina's Dream

Project Description:

Since 2011, the Sudanese government has employed aerial bombings and starvation warfare against the Nuban people. Tens of thousands of refugees have fled across the border to South Sudan, where a civil war erupted late last year, leaving the ongoing crises in Sudan in a state of near abandonment.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 22,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Vanessa Gould), Obit

Project Description:

With first-ever access to the legendary New York Times obituary desk, OBIT features hardened journalists chronicling life after death on deadline. With humor and humility, they share experiences and insights only an obit writer could: on life, the passage of time, who gets in, and what never dies.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 22,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Jessie Auritt), Supergirl

Project Description:

Naomi Kutin seems like a typical eleven-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl; watching her lift almost three times her body weight tells a different story. "Supergirl" follows Naomi’s coming of age as she attempts to navigate the disparate worlds of competitive powerlifting and Orthodox Judaism.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Rob Hatch-Miller), Syl Johnson: Any Way The Wind Blows

Project Description:

A film about a great “lost” African-American musician, Syl Johnson, whose 6 decade career parallels the evolution of black pop music from blues, to soul, to hip-hop. After years of being forgotten, and unpaid by rappers who sampled his songs, his marginalized voice returns to take center stage.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY15

$ 22,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Erik Shirai), The Birth of Saké

Project Description:

A small group of workers must brave unusual working conditions to bring to life a 2000 year old tradition at Yoshida Brewery, a fifth generation, family owned saké brewery in north Japan. Surrounded by 1,000 competitors, Yoshida must surface as a worthy contender in a market overrun by choice.

Electronic Media & Film

General Support

FY14

$ 22,000

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

IFP requests General Program Support for its ongoing activities including signature programs such as Independent Film Week, the Independent Filmmaker Labs, Filmmaker Magazine and numerous conferences, workshops, member events and film screenings, and programs at the Made in NY Media Center

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY14

$ 15,700

Project Title:

(Artist: Zahida Pirani), Judith: Portrait of a Street Vendor

Project Description:

A documentary short that explores the life of Judith, a street vendor from Guatemala who lives and works in New York City. Judith reveals the struggles she and her fellow vendors face on the city's streets while also sharing their attempts to change their conditions as immigrants and workers.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY14

$ 18,750

Project Title:

(Artist: Yuki Kokubo), Kasamayaki (Made in Kasama)

Project Description:

Shaken by the tsunami disasters, a daughter returns to a Japanese town to reconnect with her estranged parents. Quiet moments at the pottery wheel punctuated by tense family conversations, earthquakes, and radiation level readings, “Kasamayaki” explores the imperfect nature of human relationships.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY14

$ 18,750

Project Title:

(Artist: Marshall Curry), Run and Gun

Project Description:

RUN AND GUN tells the story of a young American who went to Libya to join the revolution against Gaddafi. He was captured and held in solitary confinement for 6 months before escaping and returning to the front line. The film is a universal character story and exploration of personal transformation.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY14

$ 18,750

Project Title:

(Artist: Alex Steyermark), The 78 Project

Project Description:

A musical journey across America to connect today’s musicians with the haunting recordings of the past. Using an authentic 1930's Presto disc recorder, artists get one 3-minute take to cut a record anywhere they choose, finding in that adventure a new connection to our shared cultural legacy.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY14

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Rachel Lears), The Hand That Feeds

Project Description:

Twelve undocumented immigrant workers face long odds, unemployment, and the threat of deportation when they take on a well-known New York City restaurant chain owned by powerful investors. This David and Goliath story explores what it takes for ordinary people to stand up for their dignity—and win.

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY13

$ 15,840

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

General Operating Expenses

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY13

$ 24,300

Project Title:

(Artist: Jon Nealon), Here Come The Videofreex

Project Description:

The story of the most radical video collective of the 60’s and 70’s. At a time when the big three networks ruled the TV airwaves and long before the internet was born, ten people pooled their creativity and brought to life their own vision of what television could be.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY13

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Afia Nathaniel), Neither the Veil nor the Four Walls

Project Description:

In this film inspired by true events, a mother makes a daring escape to save her young daughter from an arranged marriage and embarks on a dangerous road trip journey while being hunted down by her family.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY13

$ 18,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Carol Dysinger), One Bullet Afghanistan

Project Description:

The documentary, One Bullet Afghanistan, concerns the rule of law in a time of war. This story of one civilian casualty reveals the profound effect one bullet can have on a family, a community, a nation, and a war.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY13

$ 17,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Diane Sylvester), Oye Cuba! A Journey Home

Project Description:

This feature length documentary follows Grammy Award winning jazz artist Arturo O'Farrill as he overcomes political and personal hurdles to visit his father’s homeland – Cuba, a country shrouded in rhetoric and mystery for so long.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY13

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Omar Mullick), These Birds Walk

Project Description:

The documentary follows the intersecting lives of Omar, a runaway boy planning his escape from a foundation in hopes to return home, and Asad, an ambulance driver who navigates the difficult streets of Karachi, transporting the sick and dead to their fated destinations.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY13

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Brian Cassidy), Turquoise

Project Description:

After losing his older brother in a tragic accident, Antoine, 14, and his family move to a seaside town for the summer to help them grieve. When Antoine meets an enigmatic older girl, feelings of paranoia and jealousy are aroused in the boy's mother and an unsettling psychological drama unfolds.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY13

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Madeleine Olnek), Wild Nights With Emily

Project Description:

Was Emily Dickinson an uptight virgin dreaming of romance or a sensual artist obsessed with a forbidden love? “Wild Nights with Emily” is a hallucinatory film comedy which explores Dickinson’s gay love affair with her brother’s wife and its subsequent erasure from history.

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY12

$ 15,840

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

General Operating Expenses

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY12

$ 13,800

Project Title:

(Artist: Mike Plunkett), Charge

Project Description:

The documentary, Charge, follows the lives of three men - Moises, a salt gatherer living on top of the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia; Marcelo, the socialist director of Bolivia’s lithium plant: and Tom, an American energy lobbyist in a dramatic story of the new energy economy.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY12

$ 17,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Jane Weiner), On BEING THERE with Richard Leacock

Project Description:

This intimate portrait, shot over 38 years on various small-formats from Super-8 to HDV, travels 2 distinct artistic tracks: The transmission/transformation of film aesthetics gleaned by Leacock from his mentor, Robert Flaherty, and the legacy of Direct Cinema’s impact on the documentary genre.

This documentary is about an influential Korean American writer and conceptual artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Through art, Cha transformed her profound experiences with displacement into a path home by communing with an audience. She died tragically at the age of 31 but her art continues to echo.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY12

$ 22,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Zachary Heinzerling), Ushio & Noriko

Project Description:

Ushio & Noriko is a tangled love story that explores the bond between two New York-based Japanese artists and their work. Told over 40 years, the struggle between Ushio’s legacy and Noriko's fight for freedom from her husband forms a stunningly creative and often painful documentary portrait.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY12

$ 17,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Musa Syeed), Valley of Saints

Project Description:

Amidst war and environmental ruin, a young boatman tries to flee his native Kashmir. But when a military crackdown derails his escape, he becomes stranded with a mysterious woman. Their tenuous friendship forces him to choose whether he should abandon his fragile homeland or stay and rebuild.

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY11

$ 19,879

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

General Operating Expenses

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY11

$ 22,747

Project Title:

(Artist: Jyllian Gunther), Growing Small

Project Description:

Growing Small follows unorthodox educators and inner-city students and parents as they attempt to re-invent urban education by creating a custom-made public high school in their community of Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY11

$ 14,835

Project Title:

(Artist: Erin Harper), Passion

Project Description:

Transformed by an out-of-print jazz album stuffed in the bargain-bin, a young musician sacrifices his career to make known the voice of the deceased musician on the album. The artist gives away his hero only to watch the music turned into misconstrued fame and has to make up for his own lost time.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY11

$ 24,725

Project Title:

(Artist: Jessica Wolfson), Radio Unnameable

Project Description:

Legendary New York City disc jockey Bob Fass revolutionized free expression on the airwaves with his long running FM program ‘Radio Unnameable’, which has served as a cultural hub for music, politics and audience engagement for nearly 50 years.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY11

$ 22,252

Project Title:

(Artist: Volker Goetze), The Griot

Project Description:

The Griot will document a new collaboration between Ablaye Cissoko, a Senegalese griot and West Africa’s most talented kora player, with world-renowned American jazz pianist Randy Weston. A repository of African history, Ablaye Cissoko keeps 900 years of song in his head. The world changed, can he?

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY11

$ 14,835

Project Title:

(Artist: Marlo Poras), The Mosuo Sisters

Project Description:

Two spirited daughters from China’s last remaining matriarchal society are thrust into the worldwide economic downturn when they lose the only jobs they’ve ever known.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY11

$ 14,835

Project Title:

(Artist: William Miller), Time Bomb

Project Description:

February 13, 2005: thousands struggle in the streets of Dresden to define a shared history. In questioning the dilemma of the Allied “area bombing” of Germany, TIME BOMB presents a complex conversation about morality in modern warfare.

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY10

$ 24,000

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

General Operating Expenses

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY10

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Filippo Piscopo), Coal Rush

Project Description:

Co-directed by Lorena Luciano and Filippo Piscopo, documentary Coal Rush tells the story of the environmental and social empowerment battle waged by the people of Mingo County, West Virginia against Massey Energy, the fourth biggest US coal company, accused of deadly contamination of their drinking water by illegally injecting coal slurry underground.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY10

$ 15,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Till Schauder), From Texas to Tehran

Project Description:

Documentary FROM TEXAS TO TEHRAN follows a unique cultural ambassador – an American basketball player - as he transcends stereotypes and breaks down the walls of official censure and cultural prejudgments that divide the Western world from one of its most-vilified political enemies, Iran.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY10

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Michael Collins), Give Up Tomorrow

Project Description:

When a teenager from a political family in the Philippines is accused of double murder, the country’s entire judicial system is put to the test after years of alleged corruption.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY10

$ 12,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Sabine Kertscher), Telling It Like It Is

Project Description:

When diagnosed with Alzheimer Disease, American painter Bill Utermohlen created what doctors call a unique Series of Self Portraits. Much to art historian wife Pat’s surprise he is now famous. Long suppressed emotions, expectations and hopes gradually emerge – in Pat’s case with a 10-year delay.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY10

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Brian Cassidy), The Patron Saints

Project Description:

The Patron Saints is a disquieting and at times surrealistic exploration of an assisted living facility. Bound by first-hand ruminations of Jim, the nursing home’s youngest—and recently disabled—resident, the film is a revealing portrait of the changing nature of bodies and minds.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY10

$ 8,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Avi Weider), Welcome to the Machine

Project Description:

In exploring our ongoing relationship to technology, the documentary WELCOME TO THE MACHINE reveals that all discussions about technology are ultimately about what we value as living human beings.

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY09

$ 27,000

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

General Operating Expenses

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY09

$ 12,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Elinyisia Mosha), Anatomy of Poverty

Project Description:

"Anatomy of Poverty" is a documentary that explores the challenges, impact and progress of foreign direct investment in Tanzania and Africa at large.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY09

$ 10,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Alexander Sasha Reuther), Brothers on the Line

Project Description:

This documentary tells the inspirational story of the Reuther brothers, labor organizers and civil rights champions, whose vision and dedication lead an army of autoworkers into battle against corporate giants, transforming the social, economic and political landscape of a nation.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY09

$ 10,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Melanie La Rosa ), Coming To Terms With Impermanence

Project Description:

Coming To Terms With Impermanence is an impressionistic film about legendary Beat-era poet Diane di Prima.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY09

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Peter Sasowsky), Heaven and Earth and Joe Davis

Project Description:

Heaven and Earth and Joe Davis is a wild ride through the life and trials of the renowned bio-artist who sends vaginal contractions into deep space to communicate with aliens and encodes ancient greek philosophy into the eyes of transgenic flies.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY09

$ 6,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Stan Warnow), Raymond Scott - On To Something

Project Description:

A documentary chronicle of the life and career of 20th century American maverick composer, inventor and electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott, presented from the unique perspective of his filmmaker son.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY09

$ 10,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Ana Joanes), Really Delicious

Project Description:

Really Delicious explores our industrial food system while focusing on the solutions to the problems it created. Really Delicious illustrates the far-reaching transformative potential our daily food choice can have on our pleasure, health, environment and economy

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY09

$ 17,500

Project Title:

(Artist: Stuart Harmon), The Money Stone

Project Description:

Four hundred feet underground, young men risk their lives digging deep into Ghana’s red soil for gold. Known locally as "galamsey," these miners suffer greatly due to the hard work and dangerous conditions. This is the story of three young men who risk everything in search of a brighter future.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY09

$ 10,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Rachel Smith), The Problem of Haiti

Project Description:

Conditions in the slums of Haiti have been called "worse than Darfur." Destructive foreign policy has played an evident role in the evolution of these conditions. Today, a UN stabilization mission occupies Haiti.In the slum of Cite Soleil we examine the real effects of the controversial mission.

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY08

$ 27,500

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

General Operating Expenses

Electronic Media & Film

Regrants

FY08

$ 75,000

Project Title:

Distribution for Individual Artists

Project Description:

A selective, peer-review process opportunity to provide grants of up to $10,000 each for the distribution of their film, video, radio, audio, and computer-based projects. Additionally, IFP will work with NYSCA on developing a survey to study how best to provide distribution funding to individuals.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY08

$ 15,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Carlos Sandoval), A Class Apart

Project Description:

Built around the landmark 1954 legal case Hernandez v. Texas, A CLASS APART brings to life the heroic struggle of Mexican Americans to dismantle the Jim Crow-style discrimination targeted against them.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY08

$ 25,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Paul Devlin), Blast

Project Description:

Following a unique, balloon-bourne telescope from the Arctic to Antarctica, BLAST reveals the random, haphazard, personal side of science that we rarely see-the foibles, fun, and failures as well as the triumph of a team of scientists seeking to answer our most basic question: How did we get here?

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY08

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Alexandra Isles), Hidden Treasures

Project Description:

Going behind-the-scenes to the store rooms, restoration studios, corridors and galleries of the Metropolitan Museum, HIDDEN TREASURES explores the emotional impact of art as experienced by those who restore, handle, guard, and in some cases, work nights in the company of powerful art and artifacts.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY08

$ 10,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Lisa Russell), Myth of the Motherland

Project Description:

An experimental documentary film that follows a group of young spoken word artists from NYC as they embark on a creative writing journey throughout diverse African countries, meeting with African scholars, writers, artists and others to address myths and misconceptions about the Mother Continent.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY08

$ 15,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Lexy Lovell), The Good Soldier

Project Description:

The Good Soldier is a feature length documentary that explores the journey of five American soldiers from different wars (World War II, Vietnam, Gulf War, and Iraq) as they sign up, go into battle, and change their minds about war.

Watch It Burn is an intimate journey with an American writer investigating the political, economic and judicial state in Afghanistan – five years after September 11th. What emerges is a portrait of political corruption and a populace rife with fear and uncertainty.

A selective, peer-review process opportunity to provide grants of up to $5,000 for approximately two dozen filmmakers each year for the distribution of their film, video, radio, audio and computer-based projects.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY07

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: David Barker), A Strong Wind (Un viento fuerte)

Project Description:

A STRONG WIND is a mixed genre narrative/documentary film
about three young people forced to decide between family and the necessity of economic emigration in Sevina, an indigenous farming community in Michoacan, Mexico.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY07

$ 13,800

Project Title:

(Artist: Adam Hootnick), Unsettled

Project Description:

The film chronicles Israel's largest military operation in a
generation—a mission against its own citizens. Told in their words, UNSETTLED shows young people on the front lines of a conflict where the lines are blurred, in a society where trying to make peace means going to war with yourself.

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY06

$ 21,400

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

General Operating Expenses

Electronic Media & Film

Regrants

FY06

$ 50,000

Project Title:

Distribution for NYS Independent Artists

Project Description:

A selective, peer-review process opportunity to provide grants of up to $5,000 for approximately two dozen filmmakers each year for the distribution of their film, video, radio, audio and computer-based projects.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY06

$ 8,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Anne Aghion), Gacaca: The Trials

Project Description:

"Gacaca: The Trials" will be the third and last installment of the chronicle started almost five years ago on the justice and reconstruction process on the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda. The one-hour film will be set in the same rural community on which the two previous films focused, with many of the same characters we have seen before. The film will span about a one-year or eighteen month period that will encompass the preparation of the trials, to actual gacaca trials, and then their immediate aftermath.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY06

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: Andrew Berends), The Blood of My Brother: A Story of Death in Iraq

Project Description:

The Blood of my Brother tells the story of a family's grief subsequent to the accidental killing of the oldest son and family breadwinner. Ra'ad, an Iraqi photographer in the holy Shia town of Kadhimiya, was shot dead by a passing American patrol. They claim to have mistaken him for a Mehdi Army resArmy resistance fighter in the dark of night. Ra'ad's 19-year-old brother Ibrahim is the only remaining man in the family. He struggles unsuccessfully to carry on Ra'ad's photography business, to provide for his mother and two sisters, and to come to terms with his own pain.

Individual Artists

Film & Media / New Tech Prod.

FY06

$ 20,000

Project Title:

(Artist: James Olsen), The Narcotics Farm

Project Description:

'The Narcotics Farm' is a documentary focusing on a little-known prison in rural Kentucky where scientists sought a cure for drug addiction. For decades the prison's research lab led the world in addiction research. The facility and its reputation came crashing down in the mid-1970’s when it
was discovered inmates sent here on drug charges were given heroin, cocaine and other drugs to entice them to volunteer for experiments conducted at the direction of the CIA.

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY05

$ 21,400

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

General Operating Expenses

Electronic Media & Film

Regrants

FY05

$ 50,000

Project Title:

Distribution for NYS Independent Artists

Project Description:

A selective, peer-review process opportunity to provide grants of up to $5,000 for approximately two dozen filmmakers each year for the distribution of their film, video, radio, audio and computer-based projects.

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY04

$ 24,500

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

General Operating Expenses

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY03

$ 26,100

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY02

$ 26,100

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY01

$ 29,000

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

Electronic Media & Film

General Oper Support

FY00

$ 27,000

Project Title:

General Operating Expenses

Project Description:

Total: $ 2,599,863

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